Worried that President
Bush's sagging popularity could hurt in midterm elections next year,
Republicans have found a Democratic target in this staunchly GOP
state.
The Republican National Committee spent months coaxing and
coaching South Carolina state Rep. Ralph Norman to run against U.S.
Rep. John Spratt, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee and
an assistant to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
That included visits with Karl Rove, President Bush's top
adviser, and Republican party chief Ken Mehlman, said Norman, a
52-year-old residential and commercial real estate developer now
serving his first term in the Legislature.
And from pay TV's Showtime, there's Park Gillespie, a Republican
who won the "American Candidate" challenge last year. He announced a
couple of months ago.
Norman announced Thursday with a crowd of about 200 supporters on
hand to hear the state's two Republican senators and governor praise
him as he launched his campaign.
Norman was quick to emphasize Bush's anti-terrorism message and
bash Democrats as obstructionists and big spenders. "I am not a
liberal who believes we are taxed too little," he said. "I am a
conservative who believes we are taxed too much."
Norman has "got to get past Gillespie first," Winthrop University
political science professor Scott Huffmon said.
But, given the overt support of Norman months before the GOP
primary, Gillespie starts out in a tough place. It remains to be
seen how much of a credential winning a political version of
"American Idol" will be.
But Gillespie's mantra against abortion and same-sex marriage and
for "Christian values" played well enough with a television audience
to win the $200,000 contest.
Gillespie, 39, split the cash with his TV campaign manager and
spent the rest fixing up a house, setting aside money for his
children and moving to Clover, not far from Charlotte, N.C. He quit
his job as school teacher and now sells DVD duplication gear to pay
his bills and free up time to run for office.
He said he has raised $30,000 so far without sending out his
first fund-raising appeal. It's a start in an expensive race against
Spratt, whose campaign had more than $518,000 on hand at the end of
June, Gillespie said.
"It is going to take some serious resources to beat that man,"
Gillespie said. Republicans, he said, should have an advantage
against "a limousine liberal living in a very conservative
district."
Republicans often use the phrase "limousine liberal" to refer to
wealthy Democrats.
But unlike previous years, local candidates cannot count on the
president's coattails to get them into office.
"Republicans know that they have to run from the president just
to save their own seats," Huffmon said. "They know that is not a
good thing."
That's one reason the GOP is getting busy with an offense on key
Democrats and defense of other seats.
While Bush remains popular in South Carolina, his low poll
standings are "absolutely" a problem for the 2006 races, Sen.
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said.
Bush's standing in the polls and those races "are tied together
to some extent," Graham said. "There are better days ahead for
President Bush. The question is: Will there be better days ahead for
the Republican Congress?"
Norman and Gillespie could give Spratt, 62, the most credible
challenges he has had in years for the 5th District, which stretches
across the northeastern part of the state, through some of the
state's wealthiest zip codes and poorest farming counties.
Spratt's district has changed as wealthier conservatives make up
more of the voter base in this part of the district. But he's won by
lopsided margins frequently since 1982. Last year, he kept the seat
with 63 percent of the vote to his GOP challenger's 37 percent. And
in 2002, Republicans didn't even field a candidate.
"Spratt's base is wide and pretty deep and it's based on
constituent service _ both individual and bringing lots of things
back to the district," Huffmon said. "I don't think his knees are
quaking."
